http://ignighter.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/its-not-i-have-a-dream-but-its-something/

Andrew and Ben do a great job of showing the mathematics behind the decline though. Great piece guys!

Adoption of utilities is slower because they generally require a bit of learning, or re-tooling one’s existing habits.

Part of me believes that truly useful apps (like those listed before) are confident in their ability to re-create a social graph and therefor, end up sitting largely outside of Facebook with only a “profile gadget” application to market themselves.

Chris – you’re entirely right that some utilities can be inherently viral, such as Hotmail and Plaxo. These are great examples of viral action apps because the use of the application inherently involves spreading it to friends. But this type of virality is rare for utilities, and the broader point remains that if they are not structured in this unique way they will never be found in Facebook, regardless of how useful they are. And that high barrier cripples the distribution of most utilities.

Dave – I think your analysis about app developers aiming for widespread distribution to capture data for the purpose of future social commerce apps is great and definitely part of their motivation (at least for Slide and RockYou). But the question is, will having a huge user install base be necessary for making successful utility-based apps since they can’t organically grow much on their own? If so, this is a big problem and hugely constrains the number of potential developers for these apps.

Also, I agree that the news feed could be successfully used more aggressively to spread more utility-based apps, and that it is curious that Facebook has not done this. I think part of the reason is that are hamstrung by their need/desire to appear “fair” in their treatment of all app developers, and they can’t make an easy, unbiased judgement about which apps are useful and which aren’t in an automated fashion. They have taken some steps in this direction by basing the level of access to distribution channels (news feed frequency and number of daily allowable invites to an app) on user engagement with the app, but it’s not clear whether the metrics they’re using to differentiate “good” apps they want to promote vs. “bad” apps they is sufficiently weighted toward utility. (Assuming this is their aim, it certainly hasn’t had the intended effect thus far.)

Of course, there is one more possible option: that Facebook itself doesn’t think that its users want utility-based applications and that it’s therefore not aggressively pushing them. An interesting possibility…

Chris – you’re entirely right that some utilities can be inherently viral, such as Hotmail and Plaxo. These are great examples of viral action apps because the use of the application inherently involves spreading it to friends. But this type of virality is rare for utilities, and the broader point remains that if they are not structured in this unique way they will never be found in Facebook, regardless of how useful they are. And that high barrier cripples the distribution of most utilities.

Dave – I think your analysis about app developers aiming for widespread distribution to capture data for the purpose of future social commerce apps is great and definitely part of their motivation (at least for Slide and RockYou). But the question is, will having a huge user install base be necessary for making successful utility-based apps since they can’t organically grow much on their own? If so, this is a big problem and hugely constrains the number of potential developers for these apps.

Also, I agree that the news feed could be successfully used more aggressively to spread more utility-based apps, and that it is curious that Facebook has not done this. I think part of the reason is that are hamstrung by their need/desire to appear “fair” in their treatment of all app developers, and they can’t make an easy, unbiased judgement about which apps are useful and which aren’t in an automated fashion. They have taken some steps in this direction by basing the level of access to distribution channels (news feed frequency and number of daily allowable invites to an app) on user engagement with the app, but it’s not clear whether the metrics they’re using to differentiate “good” apps they want to promote vs. “bad” apps they is sufficiently weighted toward utility. (Assuming this is their aim, it certainly hasn’t had the intended effect thus far.)

Of course, there is one more possible option: that Facebook itself doesn’t think that its users want utility-based applications and that it’s therefore not aggressively pushing them. An interesting possibility…

i think the only thing that’s surprising is that most people don’t seem to think all these apps are written for fun as a way to mine/capture social graph data that can be monetized later in different ways. to me that seems incredibly obvious, but maybe i’m wrong.

to summarize:
1) the most viral apps are the ones that are a) social, and b) the most fun — which means by definition, they’re probably not very productivity-focused
2) creating these apps provides the developer(s) with access — at least temporarily, if not permanently — to a large amount of profile & connection data
3) once a large body of such data is gathered, it could be used for very “non-fun” productivity and/or transactional apps / features that monetize at a much higher level

in other words, give away the “fun games” to get access to profile & connection data, then use that data to monetize more powerful monetization… like for example, social commerce.

(and why is this so hard to figure out? )

ps – final observation: Facebook could very easily pump up the virality on productivity apps by making it easier for 3rd-party app news items to be discoverable in the Feed. the reasons they have not done this to date seem curious, unless you consider FB may be worried about a few very smart 3rd-parties with dominant position hijacking that behavior to drive massive adoption.

hmmm. curiouser & curiouser said alice…

While you point out that the rise of so many recreational apps has a tendency to crowd out utility apps, it seems like you can get around it by using the email invitation systems of Hotmail and LinkedIn.

It just seems to me that folks are in a recreational mood when they use Facebook. This may change in the future (as our perception of the Internet has changed over time).

no reason to trust everything to the users. moderation works for communities, period.

I do agree it is surprising that there is 10x more writing about the “Facebook is for kids” aspect. I also agree that having a viral coefficient > 1 is the whole game. But I’ve come to understand “utility” on a social network of personal connections means optimizing what you do with friends.